Thank you for watching! ❤ Here’s a link for the company we used: www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g678774-d18275977-Tandem_Paragliding_Vlore_Albania-Vlore_Vlore_County.html Have fun! 😁
Hi Lorrie and David, came upon your channel via your comments on the 20 yr old Canadian Ms. Rodriguez' channel. She is staying in Vlorë right now. You seem to have been to a number of cities in Albania. A 76 yr old US citizen with VERY limited means, I will go to Albania in Oct 2024. Would you be so kind and recommend which city/town I should choose to spend a month or two this fall to get a good idea what the country is about? Thank you very much.
Hello. How wonderful that you’re interested in visiting Albania. It used to be quite undiscovered but I just read a report last week that said this year Albania has broken a record. They have had 1.7 million people visit this country in just the first 3 months of this year! 😮. 735,000 of them were in the month of March alone, which is a 91% increase over the same month last year. My husband and I have been in Albania since February 13th. We spent a week in Tirana, a month in Durres and now a month in Vlorë. We leave tomorrow to go to Ksamil for 5 days, then to Sarande for 9 weeks. We will be spending a year here and plan to see as much of this beautiful country as we can. We are looking for where we want to live now that my husband is retired. As you know, it’s very challenging, if not close to impossible, to live in the states any more once you’re retired. My husband gets a small pension and will not collect his social security for 4 more years, so our travel budget is pretty tight. We have a budget of around $1600 a month. It’s so heart breaking to me that we can afford to travel to most of the world on that budget, and yet, we could never live in our home country on that amount. ☹️ It would help me to be able to give you a better answer if you could share what kind of places you like. Do you prefer big cities, smaller towns? We don’t drive here, and it’s one of our top priorities to not drive ever again, so public transportation or affordable taxis are important to us. Would that be the same for you? For me, each place we e been to so far has had its pros and cons. Tirana is the capital so there is public transportation, plenty of things to see and do in a couple of months time. We really enjoyed it there and we plan on spending our last two months in Albania there. In Fall anywhere along the coast will be very affordable. Durrës is ok. There is public transportation and some really cool historical sites to see. We didn’t stay in the city there but about 4 or 5 miles south of the city. If I remember correctly, it was only about $5 to take a taxi to the city. We do a lot of walking, and even though it was chilly (in the 50’s during the day), it was lovely to walk along the shore every day. Vlorë is beautiful! Again, we are not in the city center, but there is a bus that comes 4 times a day at the bottom of our street that we take to go to the city. It’s incredible! The bus is decent and it only cost 42 cents each way! 😮. There is a long promenade in the city to walk along and there are plenty of grocery stores and restaurants. There are some towns not too far away that are cool to visit. We took a tour to Berat from here. I would definitely recommend doing that, if you can. In Vlorë the Adriatic Sea and the Ionia Sea come together here. One of the challenges of being at the Sea in off season is that a lot of things are not open. We certainly don’t feel as though it was a hardship as there is enough open to take care of necessities. One of the advantages, of course, is that it’s much more peaceful and way less traffic and tourists in off season. We will get to discover what peak season is like at the Sea while we are in Sarande and I’m almost dreading it. 😬 From Durrës, Vlorë and Sarande you can take a ferry to Italy. In Sarande we are going to take a ferry to Corfu, Greece, which I’m really excited about! After we leave Sarande we will finally be heading more into the countryside. We will be going along the eastern side of Albania. I’m sorry this is such a long reply. 🤦🏼♀️. If you want, we can keep in touch between now and September and I can let you know about some of the places away from the Sea. Albania is beautiful and the people here are wonderful. They are the most pro-America people you will ever meet! The food is great and the cost is generally very affordable. If you have any further questions I’ll be glad to answer them the best I can. Thank you for reaching out. 😁
Not to worry about the lengthy reply! I appreciate it very much! Yes, I'd love to stay in touch. My budget is lower than yours, not into metropolitan life (Tirana is just about as much city as I can take), no car, history buff, frugal by necessity, minimalist by choice. Will finding accomodations in Tirana in October for under €500 be near impossible?
@@frugalvanner7488 I appreciate your kindness! I think that budget would be challenging in Tirana. Unfortunately it doesn’t have an ‘off’ season, so the prices don’t fluctuate much. I am in several expat groups on facebook and I will ask them if they have any recommendations, if you’d like me to. I think it’s one of those situations where you would have to know a local to get a better rate. A suggestion might be to look at Durrës. It’s only 30 minutes from Tirana, so you could go there occasionally to check out the historical sites there. There are always ride shares and buses to and from both cities. The buses run very differently here than any other place we’ve been but they are extremely reasonably priced. I’m including a link for one place I found within your budget in Durrës that is right in the city. You can generally walk everywhere there. www.booking.com/Share-w0A3sUd
@@Where_in_the_world_are_we_nowThanks again! Yes please, recommendations by folks with personal knowledge are best. BTW, NEFELI (your link) has no availability at my desired time frame. Is there a way we can PM?
